Fairytales
by Angel of Nevermore
Summary: These are the things I want to say to you...Yuffentine Post DOC


I think I always knew it couldn't be happily ever after. Not for us. Not for me, because, on second thought, there never was an us.

First of all, you never could have seen me that way. I've always been the knock-kneed ninja brat with the ratty hair and oversized shuriken. That kid, whose mouth went a mile a minute and couldn't ever stop bouncing about in my silly orange tennis shoes with the mismatched laces and my unbuttoned shorts. I know I was annoying, probably still am. I know I bugged all of them, you especially.

Why?

Maybe because you never seemed to acknowledge me, not even to scold me or tell me to shut up. You just acted like I was never there at all. And that hurt, it really did, that I was so below you that you couldn't even look at me or answer back when I talked to you. Maybe that's why I never left you alone, because, if I could only make _you_ see me, then it would be some proof that I might be worth something. Yeah, in some way, I think I fell in love with you, back when I was fifteen, but you never knew that, did you? Who could even imagine it? Me, the self proclaimed "Great Ninja Yuffie" of tomboy fame, falling for you, a dark and silent gunslinger with more emotional baggage than your average airport.

Ridiculous, that's what it always was. A ridiculous, irrational, crush on the part of a silly teenage girl.

After Jenova, and Sephiroth, and Meteor...when it was all over, I remember I actually sat down and kissed the earth that still held solid beneath us. I don't remember being quite that happy, before or since. We had survived! It was over! You were standing next to me, looking all dark and mysterious as usual. I remember beaming up at you, and saying, in simple honest words,

"We did it, Vincent." And you looked down at me, right at me, a flicker of surprise crossing your face when I omitted your much-loathed nickname, and you nodded,

"Yes Yuffie. We did." I'm pretty sure I leapt up and hugged you right then, but maybe that was just in my mind. In any case, right then I swore to never call you Vinnie again. Anything to get you to acknowledge me again.

Time passed, Barret left Marlene with Cloud and Tifa, who'd settled down in Edge. Cid went back to Rocket town, Red XIII to Cosmo Canyon, Cait Sith deactivated.

And you? Who knows? No one heard from you for two years, it might have been forever if fate hadn't intervened. You say you need to be alone, time to repent for your sins. Because you're a monster, you have to stay away. Away from us. Away from me.

I don't believe any of that crap.

You just _happened_ to be hanging about the Temple of the Ancients the night Cloud was getting his ass handed to him by those three silver haired freaks? You just _randomly_ came upon Tseng and Elena in time to save them from dying of their wounds? Despite throwing away your PHS years ago, and never getting a phone, you _somehow _knew just when to arrive and rejoin Avalanche when Bahamut was summoned?

Face it, you've been keeping much closer tabs on all of us than you want us to think. You can't stay away, as much as you want to. I was so happy when I realized this, during that battle. I thought you might come back, I thought that Avalanche would be together again, and that I would belong somewhere again. I would have killed for a chance to show you that I wasn't such a brat, for a second first impression.

I was seventeen then.

At the dawn and end of Kadaj's reunion. When the evil I thought we'd killed for good came back to take one last bite. After we found Cloud in the church, in her church, things were different for a time. Barret took a nicely deserved break, and stayed in Edge for a time to reconnect with Marlene, and Denzel, of whom he became immensely fond, almost on his first meeting. Cid stayed just long enough to enough that he and Shera were engaged, before once again heading back home, dropping off Red...or Nanaki, as I've come to know him, off at the canyon on his way.

After the fight, we had returned to the bar, and you stopped me at the door, clawed hand landing on my shoulder. I almost jumped in surprise, looking up into your crimson eyes. You looked at me,

"You've really improved, the way you fought today Yuffie, was...impressive. Godo should be proud." Before I could understand what you'd just said, you were already gone, off to help Barret out back. When your words finally sunk in, the feeling rivaled the time after Meteor. I could have cared less if my father was proud! It felt like you were saying that _you_ were proud of me. And that was more important than anything.

You stayed for a few days, before heading back to Nibelheim, claiming you had some business to deal with. I stayed in Edge too, for almost four months. It was getting harder and harder to go home to Wutai. Every time I did, there were five more suitor's of my father's choosing to meet me at the door, and five more council meetings I was forced to attend. I think, eventually I just left for good, retreating back to Seventh Heaven.

Not that I minded. Cloud and Tifa were good to me. Didn't even complain about how much I ate. I helped Tifa run the bar, and watched the kids when they were out, and I waited for you to come back. Couldn't wait to prove how mature I could be, how much I'd changed. Cid and Shera's wedding was in the summer, and once again everyone was together again. Almost.

You never showed up.

Cid swore that he'd throttle you with that red cloak of yours, Cloud made some disparaging comments, Tifa sighed sadly, and after the ceremony, I curled up in one of the back rooms on the airship, and I cried. And I stopped believing in fairytales.

There was no happily ever after, no riding off into the sunset. I realized my real role in the story. I wasn't going to be the princess who won the heart of the stoic beast, I was an ugly stepsister, who, try as she might, could never fit her foot into that beautiful glass slipper.

There could be no perfect ending, at least not for me. It felt so unfair! Even Tifa got her prince in the end. sure, it took years, limitless patience, and, in my suspicion, a couple blows to the head to make that idiot come to his senses, but she got him. Last thing I heard, they are expecting a little Strife due this spring.

Rumor even has it that Elena of the Turks, is about to become the blushing bride of none other than her boss, Tseng. And I am talking about a woman who once pulled a gun out of her bra. Even she's a princess in this twisted tale. And I'm not.

Is it Lucrecia? Is it that woman who occupies your every thought and move? I'm sorry to mention it, but she's DEAD. Has been for, what? Forty years now? Talk about being hung up over an ex.

And you think you're so alone. That only you could have all these 'sins to repent for', well, newsflash. Sure, you were a Turk, you did some nasty things in your time, but I bet neither Tseng, nor Elena have exactly been angels.

And maybe you couldn't save Lucrecia, well, from what I've heard, she didn't want to be saved. It's not your fault she died any more than Aerith's death was Cloud's. Still, at least he only spent two or so years hung up about it, instead of your thirty plus. Other people have been through the same things as you, something you might realize if you'd let anyone get close. And you know what they do? They hurt, they bleed, but they find someone or something to help hold them together, and in time, they heal, and they move on.

That's what separates you from the world, not your arm, or your eyes, or Chaos, or whatever you think it is. I saw how Cloud finally let go of Aerith once he had Tifa, and I couldn't help but think then, that, maybe, if you let me in, I could help you too, to let go of Lucrecia. But, I realized that you didn't want to let her go, couldn't let yourself. Because you have spent your life trying to avoid living, and without your ghosts and your demons and the graveyard in your closet, you have nothing.

And I think that scares you.

These are the things I want to tell you.

To show you that there is something behind this childish smile.

That immature, bratty, annoying Yuffie Kisaragi, knows you better than even you do.

You thought me childish, but, out of the mouths of babes, so to speak, I understand something that even you, with all your woe and misery and over sixty years of experience has not yet learned.

That, when faced with death, the only way to fight it is with _life,_ not more of the same.

I didn't see you again for almost another two years. I was barely nineteen, confidence regrown and ready for action. I thought I'd let you go, that I was over you for good.

I never expected to see you again. Part of me never wanted to see you again, wanted to leave you to your fate, whatever one you had chosen for yourself. You had hurt me so much, and life had made me cynical, that I think I almost wanted you to suffer. I was sick of trying to be the princess I was not, and never would be. I joined the WRO, if under slight duress, and felt for the first time since the AVALANCHE days that I was worth something. That I was needed and valuable.

And then there you were again.


End file.
